Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd
221

Text: Mary B. Wingate (1845–1933)
Music: William J. Kirkpatrick (1838–1921)
Tune name: SHEPHERD

This hymn “always brings tears to my eyes and compassion to my heart,” noted President Thomas S. Monson in an April 1993 general conference address (“Search and Rescue,” Ensign, May 1993, 48). The hymn is based on the parable of the Good Shepherd seeking his lost sheep, one of the most beloved passages in all the New Testament.

Jesus was addressing not a group of disciples or followers but a group of “publicans and sinners” when he spoke this parable, given in Luke 15:4–7:

“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

“And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

“And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”

After verse three of the hymn text asks, “‘Will you not seek for my lost ones . . . ?’” verse four answers in the affirmative. We who are singing the hymn become involved in the parable and its message. We are among the disciples, ready to enlist as “undershepherds” to seek the lost sheep. Though it might be assumed that the hymn would conclude with a call to all straying sheep to return to the fold, it is instead a call to the followers of Jesus to seek out those who are lost.

It is interesting that even though Mary B. Wingate was not a Latter-day Saint, the chorus of her text correlates closely with the Joseph Smith translation of Luke 15:4, which adds the detail that the lost sheep has wandered into the wilderness. The King James Version states only that the ninety and nine are left in the wilderness as the shepherd goes to find the lost sheep.